A Fishbowl On A Grand Scale

May 25, 1986

Walt Disney World is accustomed to planning and executing grandiose projects, but the $90 million The Living Seas pavilion at Epcot Center is a staggering achievement. Simulating an ocean environment, the pavilion centers on the world's largest aquarium, 27 feet deep and containing 6 million gallons of water.

In this huge fishbowl, with glass walls that allow visitors a panoramic view of the goings-on, live more than 2,000 undersea creatures including clown fish, angel fish, snapper, sharks, barracuda, moray eels and dolphins, specimans collected in the Florida Keys.

Visitors to the pavilion enter this watery world via an elevator-like compartment that simulates a dive to the ocean's bottom. Once there, they can ramble along the corridors of the aquarium taking a close-up look at sinister sharks as they glide menacingly through the water and at large rays that seem to fly about the submarine atmosphere.

In addition to watching the fish and various human divers as they perform their underwater work, visitors also can view a film about the birth of oceans, and dine in the Coral Reef Restaurant.

Kym Murphy, who conceived and helped to design the pavilion, which is sponsored by United Technologies, said he wanted to give people the feeling of ''being deep in the ocean, looking out at it.''

As fish flit by at eye level, it isn't hard to imagine that that is precisely the case.